Field
The present disclosure relates to network management. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to a method and system for efficiently managing a plurality of switches using a single point of configuration.
Related Art
The growth of the Internet has brought with it an increasing demand for bandwidth. As a result, equipment vendors race to build larger and faster switches, each capable of supporting a large number of end devices, to move more traffic efficiently. However, the size of a switch cannot grow infinitely. It is limited by physical space, power consumption, and design complexity, to name a few factors. One way to meet this challenge is to interconnect a number of switches to support a large number of users. Managing such a large number of switches requires tedious and complex configurations on a respective switch, typically performed by a network administrator. Such configuration includes configuring interfaces on a respective switch and routing policies for the switch.
A large number of switches can be managed together by interconnecting these switches. Typically, a respective switch discovers the other interconnected switches to obtain a local view of the topology of these switches. A discovery method on a switch usually sends discovery messages via all local interfaces (can be referred to as “flooding”) to discover the topology. All other switches in the network send a response back. Upon receiving the responses, the method discovers the switches and their topology. To consolidate the discovery process, one switch can discover the topology and share that information with the rest of the switches. However, the switch still floods the network to discover the topology. Furthermore, the switch typically employs unicast-based message exchanges to share any information with another switch. These messages are essentially part of the control traffic and do not contribute to the data traffic among the switches while taking up significant bandwidth from the interconnecting links. As a result, network management through such messages is inefficient.
While managing a network together brings many desirable features to a network, some issues remain unsolved for efficient network management and configuration.